Chapter 27
SINN'OUS
Back to his cell, and his prey. Who is still hunched over on the bunk, not quite as pale, but not his usual tanned tone either. And yet, everything has changed.
No longer a meek prey animal. Jasper is a predator. New, yes. But a predator all the same. One that could grow into a competent man, with a little guidance, and a dash of coaxing.
“What’s your name?” The question is abrupt, the tone is devoid of life. Deflated and hollow.
“Sinn'ous.” The answer is automatic. His mind flirting in the idea of guiding those hands to a blade, then a throat. To watch his prey take a life.
Fuck. The curse is a caress of the mind, taking him down into the aftereffects of what this kill means.
“You were given that name at birth?” Jasper’s question is valid. And serves to piss him off. He has to stomp back the crawling creatures of the past. They’re not welcome here.
His memories of life before his father are impossible to access. You could chain him from the ceiling, threaten to skin him alive, and he still wouldn’t be able to recall them. If he had a name before, he has no clue what it could have been.
He hasn’t gone by any name but Sinn'ous since the day he was taken. When his parents died, and his adoptive father named him.
In order to try to recall he would have to trudge back through all the mess of memories. And that isn’t something he’s willing to do for something so meaningless, not even if he was wearing a hazmat suit. It’s best left in the past, where it won’t worm its way inside his soul.
It took years of careful sculpting to cut his mind into something worth taking pride in.
“Is it relevant.” He deflects. Aware he’s doing it, but unable or unwilling to stop.
“No, I suppose it’s not . . .” Jasper mumbles, darting his eyes away from Sinn'ous to the other side of the cell.
He can’t have that, so he stubbornly places himself on the edge of the bunk. Effectively sitting in the boy’s line of sight. It’s petty, he knows. But like fuck will Jasper dismiss him.
I make the rules. Not him.
The shock comes when instead of attacking the clear show of dominance Sinn'ous is bleeding all over the damn cell, in some weak show of hand. Jasper curls in on himself, and starts to cry.
His hand moves of its own accord, draping over the boy’s shoulders, and tucking him into his side, squeezing him in close. For some reason he is compelled to do this. And he can’t find it in him to care why. It’s just something he needs, and he never denies himself anything.
Stiff at the unfamiliar sensation, he stays unmoving in the shadows of his prey’s sobbing.
He’s drawing a blank on any time in his life where he offered comfort to another.
Or even touched someone so thoroughly outside of killing them or fucking them.
And even when he fucks, it’s never felt this intimate.
Because that’s what this is, some weird intimate moment he’s unsure how to react to.
There is a fleeting thought of close proximity, from when he was a kid. But even then, it wasn’t something he did, it was something done to him.
It’s some time until the shaking stops, and the sniffling dries up. Jasper shifts around, until his warmth is somewhat depleted when he’s no longer completely reliant on Sinn'ous to hold him.
Sinn'ous does not remove his arm. Why should he? This is—well he’s not sure what it is. But he’s not willing to let it go just yet.
“Thank you . . . For helping me with this. And for . . . everything else.”
“It was no problem.” Sinn'ous’s reply is stiff, even to his own ears.
“I can’t pay you back. I have no money.” That much is obvious. And he’d filled in the blanks to any missing pieces of Jasper’s prison record he’d read.
Money’s not an issue for him. His stash is large, and well maintained in offshore bank accounts. Out of reach to any authorities trying to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.
The fortune has done him well to conceal his identity too. The alias they arrested him with says he’s an Australian citizen. And while he has lived here for many years, that is far from the truth. But money speaks, and the underground network answers.
“I don’t need your money, or want it. I have plenty of my own—which is sitting around attracting dust while I’m in here. May as well use it on something.”
“Then what do you want?” The boy’s words are coated in a veil of scepticism.
“I’ve told you. You intrigue me. I savour gifting you things. I like watching your reactions to them.”
All those times he hid on the ground floor, in a place he could watch Jasper’s genuine reactions when he thought no one was looking.
It would not be a stretch to say there are indentations in the concrete, from how often he stood there. Day after day. Observing.
Jasper snorts, a genuine laugh bubbling out. Pushing away from Sinn'ous, he rights himself, “you’ve been spying on me. Stalking me. Reni was right about the stalker type.”
Choosing to ignore the boy uttering another man’s name. Sinn'ous muses over the other words, and their implications.
“Stalking . . .” He handpicks his next choice words. “I suppose, in a way. But there is little to do in this place. I’d call it more . . .” obsessing over killing you, “observing a fine creature. A fascinating creature.” It’s not technically a lie, but it’s also not the truth.
Jasper rolls his eyes, failing miserably to suppress a small smile, “stalker.”
Sinn'ous allows a light chuckle, using the sound as a method to ease the boy’s nerves. If the face he gets in return is anything to go on, he made an impression. His prey really does have no poker face, everything in his mind runs over his features in a movie type quality.
The air is broken by the sounds of a stomach threatening to consume internal organs. Jasper’s blush to the noise is bizarre to say the least. To be embarrassed by bodily needs.
Sinn'ous’s legs carry him around his cell of their own hunt.
A hunt for food, he collects different items to place on top of the cupboard next to his sleeping bunk.
Opposite the bunk he uses more as a dumping ground for anything he hasn’t cleared a home for on the shelves, or doesn’t fit in the small cupboards.
Metal pan, a makeshift heating device of wires clipped to its side, creating a stove capable of cooking small items. Such as ramen noodles, which go in after he adds water from a plastic bottle by his bunk. Flavour is added once things start to bubble.
Throughout his cooking he can feel the boy’s eyes on him, but he can’t bring himself to look over. Unsure what expression he’d see, and unwilling to find out. Sometimes being ignorant is a blessing.
Sinn'ous hands a bowl filled to the brim over to Jasper, ignoring the shine of gratitude in his doe-eyes. But the mumbled, “thank you,” around a mouth stuffed with noodles is impossible not to hear. The resounding flutter in his chest is another sensation he chooses to shove aside, because fuck it, he doesn’t need to analyse himself.
He’s perfectly capable of knowing how he feels, and it has everything to do with his plans to disarm his prey. Nothing else.
Which is why it pisses him off when he finally discovers the half smile tugging at his lips. He drops the expression immediately, fighting not to punch the wall in frustration. In the end he uses the task of cleaning the pan to hide the outward reaction.
It’s how he almost misses the way Jasper’s eyes keep darting to the floating shelf above his bunk. To the stack of papers and envelopes.
The question is predicted. “Would you mind if I borrowed some of those?” Jasper points to the papers and envelopes, as though his target isn’t obvious, “I’d like to be able to write to my sister.”
“Help yourself,” Sinn'ous deliberately pushes a tone of nonchalance. Finishing his task of cleaning, and setting the pan aside to air dry.
Not long after, the boy has his arms filled by writing supplies and is disappearing from Sinn'ous’s cell. Leaving an empty space where he had occupied.
Sitting on the bunk, Sinn'ous fists a hand in the loose sheet, bringing the fabric to his face. It’s still warm from where it’d been pressed against Jasper.
He inhales deeply of the scent that is all Jasper.
There is a hint of prison soap, but the smell of generic soap they’re given never stays long, so it’s easy to set into the background.
This is how he remains, right past the scream of alarms informing the entire prison someone had been sent to Hell.